Novara Media

ppl who start in left-wing media/projects and then turn right or be assimilated

oh right, yes, i've seen that happen quite often -- and am very interested in it historically (john ganz has written abt it illuminatingly in the french third republic, viz from the 1870s to the 1930s; christopher hitchens wrote a long and i think still good 1980s essay* on it in re conor cruise o'brien before himself -- hitch i mean -- taking the exact same floor-crossing path)

(the latter perhaps suggests that "taking an interest" soon betokens "doing it yrself" so let me just dispel yr doubts now… !!)

*it quotes tom paulin in the form of the excellent phrase "creon's think-tank" (which is a very effectively weaponised ref to sophocles' play antigone)

Yeah I haven't seen it happen in real time much but the history of the left is littered with those people really.

Tom Paulin is one of Mark S's most cited authorities. I suspect you could find Mark S referring to Paulin on ILX in 2002.

i love him!

first ilx ref: 4 june 2001
post by: mark s

:)

This demonstrates that I am to Mark S as Mark S is to Tom Paulin.

❤️

Superb deep dive on the Met and police corruption from @trillingual in the next @LRB, published early online and of screaming, appalling relevance today: https://t.co/M4DQPyeqt9

— James B (@piercepenniless) March 21, 2023

Not that Bastani is an intellectual but thoughts bits of this are relevant to today's discussions

Here's a bar https://t.co/gro0tVkW3e pic.twitter.com/iyJwijYjX8

— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) March 21, 2023

I finally watched the whole Bastani / Hallam interview. It's a different experience from a brief clip.

It's quite disturbing, a bit of a painful experience. Why?

1: What they're talking about is so serious and bad. It has no upsides whatever till in the last moments, quite inspiringly, RH talks about 'the joyfulness of resistance'.

2: RH is maybe a disturbing figure. The grey prison sweater, the Gandalf beard, the intense eyes, the accent, the intense delivery. A strange combination of utter insistence on action here and now ('Praxis') and reference to academic research (which he says tells him the truth about human nature - this usually seems simplistic).

3: The fact that it's so combative; simply, watching people so antagonistic is uncomfortable.

4: AB, unfortunately, mostly does a bad job. I could describe this at length but will stop at saying that he interrupts far, far too much - something cited by most of the YouTube commentators.

I don't think that AB quite grasps that RH doesn't want to conduct an interview on AB's terms, but to stage an intervention, reach the Novara audience - and, repeatedly, to request that AB himself 'lead a march' (would that be popular? Not very; AB is for once wise in realising this) and potentially get arrested. AB's diversions from these demands are, again, embarrassing in a way that's painfully awkward. It's as though Novara Media has been 'called out' and can't respond.

And yet, the intensity and unusual character of this conversation does make it different from almost anything else I've watched for a long time.

The Port Vale speech is the most effective blow @Keir_Starmer has ever landed on the Tories and will resonate in every working class community 💥 pic.twitter.com/AFIGeyRqi5

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) March 23, 2023

cutting crime and more bobbies on the beat pledges might sound impressive if you've had a frontal lobotomy and are hearing a politician speak for the first time in your life

I didn’t make the longlist in Labour's selection for Mid & South Pembrokeshire. Thanks to all here in the CLP who pledged their support. If you’re in St David’s tonight come and hear me talk about the cost of living crisis...and why I will always stand with workers on strike✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 pic.twitter.com/X1ognHYrom

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) March 25, 2023

loool! where next, Paul? "I've always felt an affinity with the people of The Outer Hebrides and have decided to stand for..."

does he have any other caravans?

This is Jeremy Corbyn defending Ralph Miliband a few years ago.

We won’t see another leading U.K. politician with this much integrity and backbone for a long time pic.twitter.com/xDUcxtZphL

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) August 2, 2019

enjoying Bastani's latest incarnation, Charles Windsor stan

A point not often mentioned about AB is his Catholicism.

Where are you going with that?

oh come off it Aaron

— James B (@piercepenniless) March 31, 2023

bookmarking for future use

"Nice voice, Drake's ties, radical green politics in an understated way, a quiet internationalism"

lol, is this cunt for real? His droning voice is awful. Well yes they are very quiet and polite when they need to be these days (including his German uncles who were members of the SS) and this isn't through choice. Yes, radical green politics from a hypocritical old rich cunt who flies everywhere in private jets and helicopters.

AB is a very traditionalist thinker in some ways. Religious, community-focused, very family-oriented. Maybe his appreciation of the King goes with that. He also opposes much modern architecture, as does the King.

I think AB's latest praise for the King may be somewhat naive, though.

I don’t think those things are related.

A general rule that will never steer you wrong is that when someone starts saying shit like “bleating about how everyone who disagrees with you is racist” you pretty much know what path they’re on and you can safely dismiss them as anyone worth paying attention to

there's an entry in Chris Mullin's diaries where he meets Charles and effuses about what an insightful thinker and great humanitarian he finds the prince to be.

I don't he has any deeply held convictions on anything, he's just a weathervane prick playing a calculated game to get numbers on twitter and maintain a career.

That's no way to talk about the King!

I know Big Bas has some very regal qualities about him: his nice voice, his muscles rippling under his expensive fitted shirts as he takes another *brave* foray into classic liberalism and his fluid hottakes in his debates with Hitchens ... etc etc ... but "King" is a bit of a stretch!

apologies I have flea-bombed my house this morning and I think the left-over toxic fumes are making me high!

If you run something with any kind of principles you are more likely to face closure

We are incredibly sad to announce that gal-dem is closing.

Several factors that have contributed to this difficult decision, including numerous challenges with running a small, mission-driven, independent media company. We’ve shared more here https://t.co/0jAK94fG55

— gal-dem (@galdemzine) March 31, 2023

Unusually weak edition of Novara Live on 31.3.2023.

https://novaramedia.com/2023/03/31/trump-indicted-awful-april/

Stories include AB discussing ... AB's tweets on the King. His defence of them becomes, itself, surprisingly weak - "the climate movement is going to need respectable people like the King". He wouldn't have dared to say that in his interview with Roger Hallam, who made him look rather a dilettante.

It's an oddly low quality AB - like watching an AB created by AI.

really feeling that luxury automated monarchism. He's been on a bit of a journey but if he can't see that so called respectable millionaires/billionaires need to be eradicated like the bloodsucking fleas that they are - then he's a fucking tool. If not for the sake of the planet then at least for some urgent social justice before it becomes uninhabitable.

"Respectable" millionaires all already pretend to be very concerned about climate change, but they're not gonna approve of any plan that eats into profits. Total waste of time to try to get them onside.

It would probably be easier just to liquidate the bastards rather than have pointless concerned royal guy campaigning for some weak gradualist greenwashing bullshit, when what he's really thinking is some Malthusian Africa/Asia blaming shit anyway.

When the Taliban were negotiating with the US installed regime, one of their leaders said why are even negotiating with you when we could overrun and defeat you much quicker than this is going to take. Not saying I'm a fan of the Taliban, but that's the kind of spirit I do admire!

AB has never been high quality. If he put in a prompt in AI on random opinions a socialist should hold it would probably give him a checklist which would improve what he's coming out with!

Issuing correction on my previous post about the taliban

Embarrassing.

I would have voted against that NEC motion but tell me how a man who has defied an instruction to withdraw his name from StW's pro-Kremlin BS, and named Lowkey as a patron of his foundation, passes our party's due diligence to be a candidate?

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) March 31, 2023

"defied an instruction" lol I know the Labour Party is as anti-democratic as Putin, but you aren't meant to say that if you are a Starmer supporter

Inspired by Pinefox, I watched the AB/Hallam interview...what an oddly intense thing that is.

Yes!

Spare a thought for Paul Mason who is wrestling with the dilemma of how long to keep the redundant Welsh translation in his bio after not getting selected in Pembrokeshire. pic.twitter.com/CVKC6E4tSJ

— Rich Simcox (@RichSimcox) April 3, 2023

I thought this too.

Post an album without one bad song on it. https://t.co/xgTjwxLeEN pic.twitter.com/rwqYhyt6VA

— Grace Blakeley (@graceblakeley) April 3, 2023

I'd forgotten about the existence of Grace Blakely. Then again I don't watch any of the new right-wing news channels that aren't Sky or the BBC.

In previous eras it has been young people driving a culture of nihilism – think punk in the 1970s or James Dean in the 50s. Today it is the old. As the nation goes from bad to worse, our most powerful elders, part of an enormous age cohort, are more interested in their begonias.

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) April 13, 2023

Not his best-judged statement, I fear.

Good for them.

It gives me life to think that while "progressive" outlets take blood money from arms dealers to organise boring talks with anthropomorphic wet wipes, Novara is funded by regular people chucking us a fiver and is now #3 in the UK news podcast charts. I love my job.

— Rivkah Brown (@RivkahBrown) April 14, 2023

Young AB. The 'lad' that Mark S remembers.

Incredible this was 10 years ago
“Que se vayan todos!” pic.twitter.com/UySz3EOdvp

— ARTIST TAXI DRIVER (@chunkymark) April 15, 2023

taxi drivers that don't watch the road whilst driving ... dud

https://novaramedia.com/2023/04/13/our-elites-are-on-autopilot-and-i-think-i-know-why/

The brief blurbs for this article make it sound dire - that AB is blaming retired people in an M&S café for the state of the country.

Now I've actually read it, I see it isn't mainly saying that. It's saying, I suppose, 'the older generation is well off, hence the lack of a sense of crisis'.

But then the M&S setting is just a distraction, which raises the question: if it's decadent to be eating a bun at M&S, why was AB doing it himself?

He's also surely omitting the fact that a) many older people are *not* well off, b) the people in the M&S café are *not* the people with 'power' that he keeps talking about.

I think there is a serious point here somewhere, but lost in confusion and clickbait framing.